BT BETs on new tech to reach broadband black spots

Up to 2Mb broadband speeds attainable under new Broadband Enabling Technology; Jon Wilcox reports on the latest attempt to meet Digital Britain guidelines.

Universal broadband speed of 2Mbps by 2012: That was the jewel in Lord Carter’s Digital Britain crown published at the start of the summer. The minimum connection speed drew mixed reactions from the IT industry and business when it first featured in Carter’s interim report in January, but as expected won support from the government.

Mobile broadband and satellite connections were both highlighted in the report as technologies that would need harnessing in order to reach the goal of universal broadband suffrage within 3 years – but both aren’t without respective drawbacks. The key disadvantage for users of both technologies is the shared bandwidth between users (in the case of satellite internet it’s used to reduced costs), which means achingly slow connection speeds during peak use.